The Blacks and the Greens
by Sera dy Relandrant
Summary: A series of one shots from perspectives of the various Targaryens, Velaryons, Baratheons and associated bastards mentioned in The Rogue Prince and the Princess and the Queen.
1. Rhaenys - The Queen who Never Was

**Rhaenys Targaryen - The Queen who Never Was  
**

* * *

_"Beloved daughter of Lady Jocelyn Baratheon and Prince Aemon Targaryen, faithful wife of Lord Corlys Velaryon, mother and grandmother, the Queen Who Never Was lived fearlessly, and died amidst blood and fire. She was fifty-five years old."_

**- Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**88 AC, Driftmark  
**

"I'm not a girl," she said, shoulders squared and chin thrust out. "I am flesh made fire." She has fourteen years to his seven-and-thirty and tomorrow her lord father means to make her call him husband.

"Princess," the Lord of the Tides says amiably, "then we shall get along capitally, for I'm a storm with skin." And he gives her a smile for her scowl and in place of flowers, jewels for her bouquet.

Her mother's ashes have lain cold in the crypt for seven years now so it is her father who must come to her on the night before her wedding. She has given the slip to her handmaids and the flowered bower they have made of her chambers. Prince Aemon finds his daughter on the rocks below the castle, perched on her dragon in her riding leathers.

"Corlys Velaryon has laid the treasures of N'Ghai at your feet," he tells her, in amusement, "and you would rather wear those tattered old things?"

"I don't want them," she says. "I don't want him." Across the Blackwater Bay she can see specks of light - ships at sea, lighthouses on the shoals and lanterns in windows. "I could fly across you know," she tells him, "back to King's Landing or to the hills in Dragonstone. Or across the Narrow Sea like Aunt Saera. I could, you know."

"Rhaenys," he says, hoisting himself up Meleys' scaled red flanks to sit beside her. The dragon snorts, a ring of smoke spiraling from her nostrils, but otherwise she does him no harm. "Why must you play the part of the child when you are now a woman grown?" He curls his hand over hers, chaining her to him. "You are my only heir and it is time you were wed."

"I might be queen someday!" she bursts out. They never speak of it, not at court, but only a fool would be unable to read the signs. Her father has not sired a child since her birth, not even on his whores or mistresses, and he is her grandfather's heir. "Why must it be to Corlys Velaryon?" _A prince, _she thinks, _I s__hould be wed to a prince not a sea-dog with a peppering of Valyrian blood in his veins. In the days of the Freehold we were lords and they were stewards. _Her cousin Viserys' face swims up before her when she thinks of her prince, but he is already wed to another cousin - Aemma Arryn.

"And so you should be," her father tells her, "if the world were but a kinder place. You are a woman, Rhaenys, and to claim a crown you will need a strong husband to fight for you when I am gone. Corlys Velaryon is such a man - they do not call him the Sea Snake for nothing." And he reels off the stories he has told her a dozen times and more since her betrothal half-a-year past - of the fabled riches Corlys Velaryon has found or stolen in the east, of the greatest navy in the world that he commands, of his grace and charm and goodness... fairy stories for a child, she thinks angrily, or a fool. Or a woman's soft heart.

"Sea Snakes are well and good in their place," she says stonily when he finishes, "which is crushed beneath a rock. _I_ am a dragonrider."

"Sweet daughter," he says wearily, "so are we all."

In the morning, she goes to the sept in a velvet gown the red-black of thickening blood. In place of Corlys' bouquet of jewels she carries a dragon-rider's whip, the tip of Valyrian steel, and in place of satin slippers, she hikes up her gown so that men might see that she wears spurred boots. There is much jesting and japes made about who will wear the breeches in this marriage - and bawdier ones still of who will do the hard riding in the wedding bed. To this the bride and groom, handclasped at the altar, both smile - the princess sourly, the lord sweetly.

Afterwards the girl's grandmother is heard to remark that Dark Sister should in all justice go to her.

"You were ill-named, granddaughter," she says, when the new couple come to her to take her blessing, "you should have been a Visenya." Princess Rhaenys flushes with pleasure at Queen Alysanne's words but she never hears the ones that do not slip from her lips. _For good. And for ill. _

There is to be no ribald bedding for Prince Aemon's daughter and so when Lord Velaryon comes alone to the bridal chamber, he finds it locked and barred against him. "_I_ will send for _you_ when I have need of heirs," an imperious voice informs him, "then and not before."

When duly informed of his daughter's wilfulness, the Prince of Dragonstone splutters and storms and threatens to break the headstrong maid's door down himself. But Lord Velaryon only says, "By your leave, Your Highness, let the princess and I resolve our difficulties by ourselves."

"Stupid girl," her father grumbles to a cousin, later at the wedding feast, "never looks past her own nose." King Jaehaerys says little and less when his son's perhaps unwise words are brought to him. Queen Alysanne, though she might speak of Dark Sister when she speaks of her favorite granddaughter, never mentions a crown.

And four years later, when Prince Aemon bleeds his life away in a summer flux, it is the Queen that the old King turns to when he must choose again.


	2. Corlys - The Sea Snake

**Corlys Velaryon - The Sea Snake  
**

* * *

_...Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides, whose fleets had made him as wealthy and powerful as any man in the Seven Kingdoms.  
_

**- Archmaester Gyldayn  
**

* * *

**92 AC, King's Landing  
**

"They would have given you a crown of steel or a band with colored stones," he tells her, "but wife, I will set the jade crown of the Empress of Leng on your head and the lacquered scepters of the Shadow Lands that are said to bind shades to a man's will. I will give you the harpy's throne that once stood at the heart of Old Ghis, if you will but let me."

"Valyrian steel," she sniffs, "and a band of gold. And it is not the crown that makes the queen."

"Oh Rhaenys," he says, folding her into his arms. For once she does not twist away with a grimace, grief has made her slow and soft. Grief for a father, he knows, and not for a queenship. She has long assumed she would be queen but she has never hungered for it, as some would. "Would you rather be a queen, chained to your throne, or a dragonrider, free to the skies?"

His princess is a beautiful woman but when she weeps, there is nothing beautiful about it. The tears scour her face like sand and she is spent, she lets him carry her to the litter waiting at the foot of the Red Keep and across the city to Rhaenys's Hill. By the light of the full moon, the dragons are frosted white and silver and their roars sound more to him like a song. _What a poet you are become, man, _he thinks and almost laughs at his folly.

Not a young man anymore, he has numbered one-and-forty years, eight winters. Almost an old man. _What would I do with a crown after all? Crowns are for younger men, with fire still in their veins. Mine are clogged with sea-salt. _he thinks. _Why would I have a damned iron chair when I could sit cushioned by the fireside, with children at my feet? _Aemon would understand, he thinks, now that their schemes and plots are as his ashes. _Aemon would want his little girl to be happy. _

Rhaenys slips out of the litter, to Meleys who is waiting for her. "I should fly away," she says, wiping her face on her sleeve. She speaks half to him and half to herself. "I should have flown away before Father ever wed me to you - I threatened I would, but I was a child then."

"Where would you fly off to, my lady?"

"Somewhere they don't know me," she says. "Sothoros, why not? I've always wanted to hunt basilisks on dragonback. Yi Ti for tigerskins and a crown of jade. I can't stay here. I am shamed."

"Why do you think so?" Carefully he approaches her, till he is only a handspan away from her.

"Father was the heir," she says, "and I was his heir. They should have chosen _me_ but Grandfather picked Uncle Baelon over me..."

_And so would I, _he thinks, _a girl of eighteen, as brittle as glass, against a seasoned battle commander, a grown man with sons and grandsons of his own. What possible choice could there be? _

"Perhaps His Grace, who is known to be wise in all things, chose wisely as well this time," he says, cupping her chin. "Perhaps he knew you would never be happy on the Iron Throne."

"I _would_." She draws back slightly and Meleys growls softly in warning. But a dragon is only another beast after all and Corlys stood his ground. "You will want this marriage broken of cours e- why would you want a wife who will give you no heirs and will never wear a crown? It should be easy, we have never bedded."

"Rhaenys, is that what you think?" He pulls her to him and kisses her. "I love you, my silver princess." Her lips are cool and chapped under his, she is not a woman to smear her face and body with sweet-smelling creams and unguents, but she does not push him back. When he opens his mouth to her, she only slides away. But it is a good sign, he thinks. It is a much better sign than he has had in the four years of their marriage.

"I will not bed you," she says. "But I will need a good captain if I am to get my bearings straight on the way to the Basilisk Isles. You can take me."

"I shall be pleased to, my lady," he says gallantly, bowing to her.

"Your Highness," she reminds him, with her old spirit. "I am still a princess of the blood. I will _always_ be a princess." She is still in the lace gown she wore to the ceremony in which the Old King named his heir. Myrish lace and the sheerest Qartheen linen to be sure, but that does not trouble her a bit as she clambers up Meleys' back. He hears it tear - by morning when she comes back to the castle, weary and spent and beaming from ear to ear, she will be in rags a Fleabottom urchin would turn his nose up at. No matter. He will buy her another, just as good. And then another and another.

"And when we come back," she tells him imperiously, "I will have my marriage annulled. Or maybe I will not come back at all."

"As you wish, Your Highness," he tells her mildly. _I think not. _It is not for nothing that he has seen forty-one years and many, many, _many_ more women.

A year and three moons later, their daughter is born on the ship's deck, on the way back to Driftmark. "Blood and sea-salt," Rhaenys says, curled up in her tiger's pelt when the swaddled babe is brought to her. She smiles through her tears and kisses him. "Just like us."


	3. Laena - The Pearl of the Tides

**Laena Velaryon - The Pearl of the Tides  
**

* * *

_Grand Maester Runciter was the first to urge His Grace to remarry, even suggesting a suitable choice: the Lady Laena Velaryon, who had just turned twelve.  
_

**- Archmaester Gyldayn  
**

* * *

**105 AC, Driftmark  
**

"No matter, my pearl," her papa tells her, "I will make you a better match."

"Papa," she says forthrightly, "you don't need to console me. Or mama." At twelve, her septa thinks her too old to still use those childish names for her parents - "they are your _lord father_ and your _lady mother_, not mama and papa as though you are still a milk-swilling infant in the nursery," the dried-up bitch is forever saying. But she turns a deaf ear to the sour, puckered old thing - as she does to anything she does not like to hear.

Her papa rambles on, oblivious to her words. "A fat old man for my pretty little pearl, what was Runciter thinking when he suggested it? The very idea! And he's besotted with that daughter of his, not likely that he would name any of yours his heir. But all for a jumped-up slut..."

"Corlys," her mama says sweetly, "I think its _you_ who need consoling. Men..." she sighs as papa storms to the maester's tower, muttering furiously under his breath. She takes Laena's hand and says, "Has the news upset you, sweetling?"

"No," she says. "I'd never want to be Cousin Viserys' queen. He _is_ old and fat."

"Neither would I," mama says.

"I don't like boys very much," she confesses, "even though Septa Maerinna said I would after I flowered. Old men are worse, even though the kitchen maids are always gossiping about how much they'd rather be yoked to a steady old plodder though a spirited young colt's always best for a ride." She looks at her mother anxiously. "Is there anything wrong with me?"

Sometimes she is almost _sure_ there is. She isn't at all like her other girl cousins - certainly not like Rhaenyra who loves gowns and jewels or the Velaryon, Arryn or Baratheon girls who don't even have their own dragons. They all act like there's something the matter with her and though she doesn't mind, sometimes it hurts when they play and gossip amongst themselves and never invite her to join.

"No, my pearl," her mother says, letting her cuddle on her lap though she is a big girl now - no, not even a big girl, a maiden flowered and how she hates it when anyone calls her that. "You're only twelve and you're just like me. Flesh made fire." And she pinches her nose and says a good ride round the cliffs will make her feel better in no time at all.

Laenor is watching Seasmoke feed when they come back to the rocks. "I hear there's to be a wedding," he tells mama, "Cousin Viserys is going to marry Lady Alicent Hightower."

"You're only the very last person to know," Laena tells her little brother in a superior voice. "_We_ knew it ages ago." She is about to tell him that at first she was to be chosen as the bride when her mother quells her with a look. She's right of course, Laena thinks, Laenor blabs as much as he eats. And he eats a _lot_.

"I want new clothes then," Laenor announces. "If I'm to go to a royal wedding, these shabby old things won't do at all."

"_You_ should have been the girl," Laena says, because her mother is too nice to state the obvious.

"We'll see about new clothes," her mother says cautiously, looping an arm around each of them and steering them towards the castle.

"Clothes are important," Laenor insists. "I want a silver velvet, with dragons embroidered in purple silk and pearls stitched all over it. I know just how it'll look and mama, for you I think yellow-" Rhaenys ruffles his hair fondly but there is a wary look in her eyes.

Laenor is still babbling about new clothes at supper and papa, listening to him with only half an ear and brooding over his wine, never asks a thing until the fruits and cheeses are brought to table. "What's the occasion, my boy?" he asks tolerantly.

"The royal wedding of course!" Laenor says. "We're all to go, aren't we?"

"Hmm." Papa strokes his bushy silver moustache, so soft and thick that Laena still loves running her hands through it just as she did when she was little. "I don't know about that."

Laenor regards him with wide-eyed surprise. "But we must!" he insists. "It-it'd be a slight to the king if we didn't! Wouldn't it, mama?"

But their mother, always so carefully indifferent to the politics of the court, is dipping her strawberries in cream and sugar. Resolutely she ignores them all.

"It was a slight to us," Papa says softly, "when the king cast off your sister for a used-up whore with mud in her veins. Laena should have been Viserys' queen, by all rights - Grand Maester Runciter and all the wise heads at the court thought it best. But no, what did that fat little twat think - as though he _can_ think for all the lard in his blood-" his voice rises and Laena shrinks away nervously from him. She doesn't like it when her papa turns into a pirate, as he does sometimes when he's especially angry.

"Laenor," Mama murmurs, "don't keep your mouth open like a frog waiting for flies. It looks uncouth."

"But mama-" he splutters and turns accusingly to Laena. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you're a baby," she tells him very primly.

"I am _not_-"

Rhaenys sighs and drags the two out of the hall and towards her solar. "Children, children, don't make a scene," she says, in the sing-song voice she used to tell them stories when they were little.

"His Grace will be wroth," Laenor, who loves the sound of high-flown words and his own voice, says. He tugs on his mother's gown anxiously. "Mama aren't you worried?"

"I never involve myself in state affairs or scandals," she tells them, "I haven't since my poor father died. I leave that to your papa - he has more taste for it than I do." In the solar, she hands out work for the two of them to do - crocheting for Laenor who loves it and whittling for Laena, who at least prefers it to needlework. "I won't have idle hands in my home," their mama is always fond of saying, "do what pleases you, but you must do something useful."

She begins to mull wine for an after-supper snack and when they have finally quietened down she says, "Besides Laenor, I think we'll be too busy now to attend our cousin's wedding. A little bird tells me that we're to have a visitor."

"Is Laena getting married to someone new?"

"I never was married in the first place!"

"Hardly," their mother says, laughing softly. "What ideas you children get into your heads sometimes. No, it's your Cousin Daemon. You two haven't seen him since you were very little, he's like a gadfly that one, always buzzing off from here to there. Laenor won't remember him at all."

"I do," Laena says. _It'd be hard to forget Cousin Daemon,_ she thinks. _It would be very hard indeed. _


	4. Baela the Burnt

**Baela Targaryen - The Burnt  
**

* * *

_So it came to pass that when King Aegon II flew Sunfyre over Dragonmont's smoking peak and made his descent, expecting to make a triumphant entrance into a castle safely in the hands of his own men, with the queen's loyalists slain or captured, up to met him rose Baela Targaryen, Prince Daemon's daughter by the Lady Laena, and fearless as her father._

**- Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**131 AC, Dragonstone  
**

When still a child, she would ride Moondancer round the cliffs while the Dragonmont smoked. _Fire cannot touch a dragon, _she would say loftily to the septas and ladies-in-waiting who sought to hem her in. Her father would only laugh if they came twittering at him and tell her that she had her mother's fire. Baela had never known her mother, Lady Laena had died in the birthing bed when she was too small to remember. _You are so like her, _her grandmother often said to her but her grandmother was dead, just like father and mother.

They carry her down to the docks in a litter now, and she pushes the curtains past to see the wan sun and the mountain smoking behind the castle. They have taken her wings and they have taken her legs. _It would be a kindness to take the rest of me, _she thinks. _A sweet mercy. _

_The Pure Maid _carries the last of Daemon Targaryen's children back home. Her sister is waiting for them at the harbor, wrapped in a furred mantle. _It must be snowing in the Vale, _Baela remembers but Dragonstone is too far south to have ever seen snow. Little Viserys is the first to leap off his pony and run to her, though Baela doubts if he remembers her at all. Still, the child is starved for affection - a new older sister is something to look forward to, far better than sour, muttering Baela. A pretty new sister.

Rhaena crouches to his level and the boy is all over her, clinging to her as though she is his second mother. She puts a marzipan stick in his hand and when she rises, he clings to her hip, slowing her down as she makes her way to the litter. They have put her on display on a cushioned chair. Thankfully, her veil still shields her.

"Sister?" Her voice is still soft and whispery. The shy voice of the unwanted child.

_My mirror, _Baela thinks bitterly. In place of a tapestry of scars and seared skin, Rhaena's face is smooth. Her beautiful hands brush against the edges of Baela's veil but she jerks sharply away. "Not here," she rasps.

"Your voice..." Rhaena whispers.

"If it's only my voice that scares you," Baela says, "then sweet sister, you're in for a big shock."

At Rhaena's hip, Viserys clamors to ride back with her - Aegon has sent her a dainty chestnut mare to ride back to the castle on and he can ride right next to her, he doesn't want his fat pony, ponies are only for stupid children everyone knows that... "Hush sweetling," Rhaena says, but gently, "I will go in the litter with our sister today. Would you like to come with us?"

Viserys recoils. "No," he says and with a child's honest cruelty he adds, "she scares me."

Baela laughs, the sound as hard as steel against stone. "Do you hear that, Rhaena?" she says, not able to help herself. _Maimed and mad, _she thinks. "I _scare_ him."

Rhaena climbs in with her without a word and draws the curtains around them. They are made of wispy yellow silk, thin enough to let the light in. Rhaena begins to untangle the pins that hold Baela's hair and veil in place. "You could never scare me," she says simply. "You're my mirror, remember_? Mirror, mirror, on the wall who's the fairest one of them all_?"

She remembers. Oh the hours they used to spend, playing with their stepmother's mirrors and laughing at the two bright faces, impossible to tell apart, that looked back at them. "Were we ever so young and foolish?"

"We're still young," Rhaena reminds her, with a little tremble in her voice. The heavy dark veil comes off at last. "Five-and-ten." She looks into Baela's face and somehow it is as though the years and the marks do not exist for her at all - as though she is truly looking into her own face, mirrored back at her.

"Fire cannot touch a dragon," Baela says, jerking back, unable to meet her sister's unflinching gaze. "What a fool I was."

At the feast, their half-brother the new king greets Rhaena with brittle courtesy. "Be welcome, sweet sister," he says and gives her the kiss of peace.

"He's changed," Rhaena murmurs, coming back to sit with Baela at a table a step below the royal dais. The boy king eats not with his family but with his regent and the council of protectors. "Poor little thing, he looks so wan and weary. And Baela who thought to dress him all in black? Surely it is not in mourning for the _Usurper_." The Usurper - that is what they were all brought up to call their stepmother's false brother, King Aegon.

"He looks like one of the Stranger's minions," Baela agrees, lifting her veil an inch to eat. Up, down, back and forth. It makes the food lose all its savor and usually she prefers to eat alone. But today is their last banquet on Dragonstone. Tomorrow they are to sail to King's Landing so that Aegon might claim his new throne. "It's his own doing, he's never stopped wearing black ever since they dragged him out of the dungeons. He says he'll wear black to his crowning as well, and you should have seen what a tizzy _that_ put the council in."

Rhaena laughs softly, covering her mouth with her hand for delicacy. "They circle round him like crows for the kill," she says uneasily. "It's not right. He should sit with us."

"He's a child of eleven with a crown," Baela snaps at her. Rhaena was always the stupid one, even their stepmother said so and blunt as always, to her face. "Do you ever think they will let us sit with him again?"

"Let's go," Rhaena says, slipping her hand into Baela's gloved one. "I feel sick." Thinking no doubt of the time they slipped out of interminable suppers and banquets together, two little girls hand-in-hand.

"I can't," Baela says simply. "I need someone to carry me."

"Oh. Oh."

At night, Rhaena pads from her own room to Baela's and with a flick of her fingers, dismisses the handmaid who tends her twin. Baela lets her pick up the hairbrush the girl was using. It has grown some in the last few months, sparser and more brittle than before it was burnt to be sure, but still the same silver as Rhaena's.

Rhaena combs through it carefully and over the wine and wafers that have been brought to the chamber as an after-supper snack, she begins to prattle. Of old days and new. _No wonder she was forever dashing to the sept to pray. She needed the gods to prattle to when everyone else would clap their hands over their ears when they saw her coming. _Baela lets her and after she is through, she does the same for Rhaena. Where Baela's hair barely scrapes her shoulders now, Rhaena's reaches to her hips. It is slow going but Rhaena does not mind.

"We'll need to call the maid to carry me back to the bed," Baela says practically.

"Don't be a ninny. I'll do it." Rhaena pushes the cushioned stool away from the mirror and table and across the room to the bed. She half-drags, half-carries Baela on to the bed and tucks her in. "That wasn't so hard," she says breathlessly. "I'm not a feckless little fool you know. I _can_ do some things by myself."

"Jace and Luke liked you more than me because you were a feckless ninny," Baela reminds her dryly. "Even though Jace was supposed to be mine. You flirted with him all the same."

Rhaena blows out the candles in the room. "Aren't you a spiteful little cat."

"You would be spiteful too if you had my face."

"That I would," Rhaena agrees, without missing a beat, and slips into the covers besides Baela. She strokes her face tenderly and somehow it feels good to have those soft, smooth hands over her face, even though she hates Rhaena a little. Nobody touches her face anymore, nobody comes near her anymore if they can help it. "But not to you, Bae."

Baela puts her hands over Rhaena's face as well, mapping the pure beauty of the face that used to be her own. "You were always praying, Rhaena. We used to laugh at you behind your back."

"And in my face as well. Our stepmother was forever telling me I was a most tiresome girl."

"What did you pray for?"

Rhaena laughs but it is not a gay laugh, not like her usual laugh at all that makes everyone smile. "Why for my dragon eggs to hatch of course. I was so jealous of you all, when yours hatched but mine died sickly and you all rode dragons while I had to sit and sew and endure my ladies' pitying looks. I felt so worthless, so dreadful-"

"I pray too, now. Just as hard as you ever did."

Rhaena curls her arms tighter around her. "What do you pray for, Bae?"

"Mercy. You can give me mercy." When she is done speaking, her sister still clings to her but her tears are wet and sticky on both their faces.

"Baela, _please_..."

"You're my sister," Baela says fiercely, her nails raking Rhaena's hands and arms. She hopes she rips the skin to shreds, all that smooth, perfect skin... "My twin. My mirror. If not you, then who?"

"Baela I never could! It would be the most terrible sin-" She is mumbling incoherently now, almost choking on her tears and shivering as though from ague. "Oh how can you speak of such things?"

_No matter, _Baela thinks, her fingers clawing at her sister's face now, blood under her nails. _Not so pretty now, are you? _She wants Rhaena to scream.

It is as though another part of her has taken over her, the monster that lived in her dragon and still lives on in her. She feels so detached from the scene though by morning she knows she will be sorry, she will cry over Rhaena's poor face as bitterly as her sister. No wonder Viserys is scared of her - and not just because of how she looks.

_I never expected Rhaena to crack at the first anyway. But she's a weakling, she could never hatch a dragon's egg while I had Moondancer. I'm the strong one, the brave one, just like father said. I'll wear her down like the tides wear out the rock. _


	5. Daemon - The Prince of the City

_Thus did matters stand in King's Landing late in the year 105 AC, when Queen Aemma was brought to bed in Maegor's Holdfast, and died whilst giving birth to the son that Viserys Targaryen had desired for so long. The boy (named Baelon, after the king's father) survived her only by a day, leaving king and court bereft... save perhaps for Prince Daemon, who was observed in a brothel on the Street of Silk, making drunken japes with his highborn cronies about the "heir for a day". When word of this got back to the king (legend says that it was the whore sitting in Daemon's lap who informed on him, but evidence suggests it was actually one of his drinking companions, a captain in the gold cloaks eager for advancement), Viserys became livid. His Grace had finally had a surfeit of this ungrateful brother and his ambitions._

**- Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**105 AC, King's Landing**

"A toast to His Royal Highness!" the Prince of the City roared, raising his tankard high. "Baelon Targaryen, Heir for a Day!" The white wine of Lys spilled down his doublet and trickled between the breasts of the whore in his lap and the one kneeling at his feet. One was clad in silver chains, the other in gold. They laughed with him, petting and pawing, and his men laughed and cheered as well.

The brat was dead and his mother with him. That was cause enough, more than cause, for Daemon Targaryen to let loose his purse and shower the Street of Silk with gold.

"When I am king," he slurred, licking the wine off the girl's teats, "I'll fuck you on the feather bed she died in. You bring me good luck, eh?" He stroked the golden hair of the girl kneeling at his feet. "I won't forget you either, sweetling. I'll lay you on the little prince's tomb-slab and make you squeal. How'd you like that?"

"Very well, m'lord prince," she said, smiling up at him. "I'll scream loud enough to let the poor prince hear, if you want me too."

But he wasn't listening. "Mysaria!" he shouted. The Lyseni dancer came slowly down the steps of the bawdhouse he'd bought for her. He'd made a habit of her and since she'd pleased him so well, set her up in her own house. "Come celebrate with me, my queen-to-be!"

"_Misery_," hissed the whore in his lap but he knocked her off, to make a place for his lover. Where all the other women in the room wore only their hair and bits and pieces of metal to cover themselves, Mysaria was dressed as demurely as a septa in a motherhouse.

"You entice me, my love," he murmured, looping his fingers through her tooled leather belt. "Why all this black, my sweet one? Not that it doesn't become you..."

"I am in mourning for the young prince," she said, unsmiling. She resisted his effort to pull her into his lap. "And so should you be, my lord."

His brows knit together but he said lightly, "Really? Do tell."

"His Grace will hear of this," she said gravely, drawing a footstool to sit upon. "He will not like it."

"Visery's in mourning."

"But his Master of Whispers is _not_." She looked at him earnestly. "My prince, you should take yourself back to the castle. Weep by the poor little prince's casket, throw yourself at your brother's feet. Mourn."

"Curse you for a plague of misery," he snapped. "I am king now, or near enough to make no matter."

"No," she said, her voice whisper-soft. "You are not even His Grace's heir. He has still a daughter."

"You disgust me," he snapped, swatting at her. She ducked and rose, face troubled. "I should you left you in the pillowhouse I found you, to dance naked on tables and in men's laps."

"I was a dancer, Your Highness," she said, with a dignity that was at odds with her situation. "I have been many a man's lover, but I have never been any man's whore." With a dancer's grace, she made her curtsey to him. "If I were you, I would pack. That is what I intend to do now, myself. I fear you have little time left in the city. When dawn breaks over the Red Keep, your brother will summon you."

"I raised her up," he muttered to the girl at his feet. She had busy little hands that lingered pleasantly between his legs. "I could drag her down and put you in her place." She was pretty enough, but in a common way, like the violets that grazed the dusty roadside. Mysaria was a hothouse orchid. _No damn me, she's too quick and queer to leave, curse the wench for it. _

"Another round!" he shouted, "another and another and another! We must toast the Half-day Heir's journey to Hell!" He tugged the girl up, already staggering when he found his feet. "You," he said, pointing to another, "you and you and you." The last was a comely boy, a cupbearer who could be no more than thirteen. He would add spice to the feast. _I don't need the White Worm. I can take my pleasure where I want and when I want. _"A king must celebrate like a king, eh?"


	6. Mysaria - The White Worm

_When he learned that his concubine was pregnant, Prince Daemon presented her with a dragon's egg, but in this he went too far. King Viserys commanded him to return the egg and return to his lawful wife or else be attained as a traitor. The prince obeyed, though with ill grace, dispatching Mysaria (eggless) back to Lys, whilst he himself flew to Runestone in the Vale and the unwelcome company of his "bronze bitch". But Mysaria lost her child during a storm on the narrow sea. _

** - Archmaester Gyldayn **

* * *

**106 AC, Dragonstone**

_See mother, _she wanted to say as she mounted the gangplanck of _The Songstress, I am not just some pennywhore, not some worm to be trod upon. I am the mother of a dragon. _But her mother was, in all likeliness, dead by now, festering in some pauper's grave in Lys. Nowhere she could bring flowers or grandchildren to - she did not even know when she had died.

"I will come back to you," Daemon said fiercely. He clasped her in his arms one last time, his grip hard. "To you and our son."

_Not all children are sons, _she thought but did not voice the words. _Though all fathers would like them to be. _

"Tell him about me," he said, placing his hands on her gravid belly. "I'll never give the bronze bitch the satisfaction of bearing my heirs. Never. Someday it will be our son who will rule over my lands."

"As you will," she murmured and thought that it was enough that their child should be master of the manse that Daemon had bought for her in Lys. What joy had his lands bought Daemon, after all? One last kiss and she was left to make her way alone to the deck. She watched as Daemon mounted Caraxes, waving until man and dragon were but a speck lost in the sharp blue of the sky.

The ship's master approached her respectfully. "Everything to your liking, my lady?"

She smiled at him and in the Low Valyrian of the Free Cities that they both spoke said, "Master, I left Lys in the hold of a slave ship when I was eleven. I was still a child but I was no maid. I was not a slave because there are no slaves in the Sunset Kingdoms but I was a slave, none the less. Now I leave again for Lys in a cabin with a feather-bed, a woman to wait on me and fine food and wine at the slightest crook of my finger. How could anything not be to my liking?"

He smiled broadly at her. "You have come a far way, my lady." He glanced at her stomach. "Gods willing, you will go further yet."

She said nothing to that, making a slight bow. She had swung a ring on a golden chain, in the manner of peasant women who tried to gauge the sex of their unborn child. A foolish custom, she knew, but she had not been able to help herself. It would swing in a circle for a girl, a pendulum for a boy.

_Nothing, _she remembered, _it came to nothing. _Of course she had not told Daemon. Men, dragonlords in particular, always read too much in the workings of the shadow world. A lover should bring comfort and cheer, she thought, not misery and moans. Some said she was not a good whore, since she did not know the first thing about giving joy out of bed.

"Perhaps that was as it should be," she murmured, trying to take comfort, "after all dragons are neither male or female." She smoothed her hands over the soft rosy wool of her gown and went to her cabin. She intended to enjoy herself for this voyage. For the first time in her life she had no one, no mother or customers or master or bawd or jealous women, no one to please but herself.


	7. Rhaenyra - The Realm's Delight

_Yet Princess Rhaenyra continued to sit at the foot of the Iron Throne when her father held court, and His Grace began bringing her to meetings of the small council as well. Though many lords and knights sought her favor, the princess had eyes only for Ser Criston Cole, her gallant young sworn shield. "Ser Criston protects the princess from her enemies, but who protects the princess from Ser Criston?" Queen Alicent asked one day at court._

**- Archmaester Gyldayn**

* * *

**111 AC, King's Landing**

Her lord father had laid his wager on young Strong, her stepmother on a Hightower cousin to who she'd given her favor - a green ribbon, plaited into his stallion's mane. The Hand pinned his hopes on his youngest son, Green Gwayne.

"No need to ask whom my lady princess favors," the queen said, with a smile that cut, "who could it be, save bold Ser Criston?"

"Fortune favors the bold," Rhaenyra replied, not to be outdone. "I will wager my crown against yours, lady mother."

When she had flowered, her father had bestowed her late mother's crown on her, a spiked band of gold set with sapphires to match the blue of Queen Aemma's eyes. Against it, Alicent's crown was a delicate thing of filigreed flowers in rose gold - pretty enough to be coveted, but so light and insubstantial that it seemed a poor thing to grace a queen's brow. Still, Rhaenyra would enjoy the taking of it from her stepmother.

"Done and done."

Her father smiled, pleased at their seeming amiability. He liked things to be sweet and simple. Taking advantage of it, Rhaenyra plucked her half-brother from her stepmother's lap. "Aemond and I shall watch together," she said and cuddled the squalling infant, "shall we not, my lamb?" This was the third brat that had tumbled forth from her stepmother's supple belly, scarcely a year old and forever bawling whenever she touched or held him. In that he was like his siblings - four-year-old Aegon and two-year-old Helaena would always hide behind their nurse's skirts whenever they saw her. The regard was mutual.

"It's good to see you getting along," her father said brightly before Alicent, her smile strained, could intercede.

Rhaenyra kissed the boy's curls, wishing she could drive a nail instead through the soft head._ But Alicent would bear another, _she thought, _there's no stopping a rutting sow. _"I hope someday to have children of my own," she said, "children as sweet and precious as yours, mother."

"Soon," her father promised her. She smiled at him, thinking he was a dear but a fool all the same. He would wed her to his advantage - to some great lord from one side or the other of the Narrow Sea. But someday _she_ would be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Her heirs would be of her choosing, not bred upon her body in cold duty. Her eyes strayed to the Kingsguard, waiting in the courtyard.

Men had come sniffing at her heels ever since her true mother's death, but it was only after she had flowered that there had been a different kind of hunger in their eyes. All men save the one she wanted. _Would it spoil the spell if Criston ever looked at me like that? _she thought. He could set her heart racing and her palms sweating with a glance. Sometimes, when he smiled at her, she had to look away lest she betray herself with tears and pleas. _Love me, _she might say, _you are the only one who cared for me since my mother died and my father wed a whore. Hold me close and love me. _When he furrowed his brow in thought, she would have kissed those lines away if she dared.

_A true woman would, _she thought. _Her kisses would make him forget honor and duty. _But she had never kissed a boy or man before and she would not know where to start.

They made their stately progress from Maegor's Holdfast, in covered litters across the city to where the tourney would be held. The Kingsguard excused themselves to prepare in the white silk pavilions that had been erected across the field. Her father, Alicent and the three brats sat in one of the royal boxes and across the field from them, Rhaenyra sat with her cousins and ladies.

She received the homage of the lords and knights who made their way to her. It seemed though that the whispers at today's tourney were unusually loud. She could not make sense of it before an Arryn cousin murmured in her ear that her gown was so strikingly unlike the queen's that men had taken notice. Was this then a token of defiance, of the princess's disdain for the queen? Hitherto they had always dressed in suitably complementary or similar colors.

Of all things to take note of, she thought, dismissing once more the folly of men, they latched on a gown? She held her fan up to her face to cover her mouth. "Perhaps," she said evasively, "I wear the colors of my house. Alicent wears the color of envy."

Merium smiled. "I am sure there would be some who would be interested to hear that," she said. "They would think you had finally come into your own, in wisdom and courage, Your Highness."

The way the words were phrased gave her pause. "Do they say aught else of the heir to the throne?"

With a cousin's freedom, Merium said, "Some do. They say you are but a young girl, feckless and foolish. The queen is a mother and mothers are known to be as fierce as lionesses when their cubs are in danger."

"Sadly her cubs are still infants in the nursery. A wise man would remember that." She nodded to Merium. "Go. Spread the word that the _crown_ princess has come into her own."

Before the tourney began, Criston came to her. His scales were white as milk against the coal of his hair. He was the most gallant knight in a court of gallant men. "I beg the honor of wearing your favor today, Your Highness."

Her mouth was dry and suddenly she felt like a little girl of six again, who had looked up at the knight appointed to be her sworn shield with doubt. He had seemed so stiff and solemn that she had been on edge around him, at first, but then he had brought her a stick and a wheel and showed her how the children of smallfolk could play with it for hours on end. He had bought her ribbons from the markets at King's Landing and secreted sweets for her in between her lessons, when her governesses were busy.

"Her Highness grants it and hopes you will honor it well today," Merium said for her. All she could manage was a nod - perhaps it was regal and dignified, but she wished she could have said the words herself. _Stupid, stupid, stupid, _she berated herself, even as she handed him her handkerchief.

"Wear it close to your heart," she managed, in a feeble squawk. The words should have come with a sultry smile, a flutter of her lashes. Hadn't she seen the court ladies at their business long enough to learn? But no, she had spent too many years learning how to be a queen to learn how to be a woman. _Someone should have appointed a governess for that. _

"Nothing will tear it away, my lady princess."

When he rode away, Merium, who knew where her affections lay, smirked at her. "Oh cousin," she murmured, low enough that none of their ladies could hear, "you are so sweet and virginal. Any man would be delighted to have a daughter like you."

"That's why they call me the Realm's Delight."

Merium flicked her fingers in dismissal. "It sounds like the name they'd give me a brothel whore. Hardly fearsome or regal." She was right at that. A prince who was heir to his father's throne might be called Strongarm or The Sharpspear but what name had the singers saddled her with? Oh yes - the Realm's Delight. It had made her want to gag ever since she was nine.

She had just begun to suck on a sugar cone, from the platter of fruits and sweets that had been laid before them, when Deanna Strong let out a fearsome shriek. "_Really_," Rhaenyra began sharply, determined to maintain order and discipline among her women, when Merium grabbed her arm and pointed to the skies.

"Mercy, it must be a dragon!"

Lower and lower circled the rider and the dragon, its shadow black and ominous against the tourney grounds. "What color is it?" Rhaenyra snapped, raising her voice to be heard above the shouts and screams of the crowd. The smallfolk had smashed against the wooden fences erected around the field, scrabbling like so much vermin. _Fools, if they're to be roasted today they will be. Not much good stamping all over one another, is there? _Sometimes the smallfolk acted quite as though they were without minds of their own.

Most of the lords and knights were on their feet, swords unsheathed. A few ladies had simply swooned. Her father sat quite still, Ser Otto whispering furiously in his ear. White-faced Alicent had grabbed her children from their nurses, Aegon and Aemond in her lap and Helaena clinging to her arm.

Merium squinted hard and finally said, "Red."

The dragon was huge and lean, much larger than Syrax. Its scales were the dusty red of clayey soil, rather than a deep blood-red like Meleys'. "Caraxes," Rhaenyra said.

"How can you tell?" Merium asked, wide-eyed.

In truth, Prince Daemon's dragon had not been seen in these parts for nigh on eight years. Rhaenyra scarcely remembered it at all - and of the man, her uncle, she had only childhood memories. Sweet ones. "I listened in my lessons," she said primly, "rather than make eyes at boys."

She sat with her hands folded in her lap, determined to retain her dignity. "It seems that my uncle has come home." She turned to her ladies and snapped, "Sit down you fools and shut your mouths. The next one I catch squalling like a headless chicken, I'll have whipped. Throw some cold water over that silly girl, she'll come round quicker then. I have no place in my retinue for cravens and fools."

Order returned in her box, she waited to see what would happen. A single dragon and rider were no match for the city. If her uncle killed them all now - his brother, nephews and nieces - he would forever be branded kinslayer. No men would harken to his banner save the cut-throats and pirates he had befriended over the years.

Thrice he circled above the tourney grounds, the gold and silver of his garments glittering fiercely in the sunlight. _He looks like some god, descending from the clouds, _she thought. Better not let that slip before a septon - they all deemed her uncle godless. When at last he came to earth, he vaulted from Caraxes' back in one leap and knelt in the dust before her father's box.

"You were right," Merium whispered in awe. "How grand he looks!" Rhaenyra pinched her sharply to make her quiet.

"Brother," he said in his booming voice, loud enough so that all might hear. "I return to you, a changed man. Where I was haughty before, I am now humble. Where I was wild before, I am now tamed. Where I was ungrateful before, I am now loyal, desiring only to serve my liege lord and royal brother." Alicent's eyebrows had risen as high in her face as they could go, but her father was on his feet.

"I offer you the crown of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea," he said, opening a velvet box and showing off the contents. "Won by blood and sweat. A token of my love and fealty, to be yours and those of your heirs in perpetuity. Forgive me, brother, and let me serve you once more."

Her father had left his box, shadowed by his shield, Steffon Darklyn. He raised Daemon up and kissed him on both cheeks. "Be welcome back to the fold, brother," he said. He accepted the box and to Rhaenyra's surprise, placed the crown upon Daemon's head. "Love and honor me and let us forget the strife of years gone by. Let us be as brothers once more."

The crowds began to cheer wildly, voices loud as thunder in joy that the sons of Prince Baelon were reunited once more. _How pleasant it would be drive a wedge between Aegon and Aemond and hope they finished one another off. _The thought gave her pause for a moment but it was not to be considered now. The older one could scarce lift a wooden toy sword, the younger one had not gained the full use of his legs. _Something to consider on a rainy day. _

Rhaenyra clapped and shouted with the crowd, putting those things from her mind in the general jubilation. She had not seen her uncle in years, not since her mother and brother had died. One of the last links with the past, the simple days before Alicent. If her father was ready to take him back, she would not be far behind. She had missed him, she realized with a start.

"Uncle!" she shouted, rising to her feet. He turned and spying her, gave her a broad smile. "Uncle, uncle!"

"Niece," he said, making his way to her box. She threw her arms around him on impulse and he hugged her back fiercely in return. No one hugged her, except for her father. No one else wanted to.

"Have you come to stay?" she demanded. Merium scooted away and Daemon took her seat. She felt like a child as she said, "You must stay!"

He grinned at her. "I intend to, sweet. I have things to deal with."

"What times?"

He popped a Dornish date in his mouth and winked at her. This time his grin was definitely flirtatious and she found herself flushing. "Wouldn't you like to know."

He made her laugh during the bouts, with stories of his time in the Stepstones and Dragonstone, japes about the riders on the field and the court looking upon them. He had a clever story about everyone, it seemed. "What about me?" she demanded. "What do they say about me?"

"Ah Rhaenyra," he said tenderly, laying one finger on her cheek, "you are still so fresh and young and sweet. I have no stories to tell about you."

That should have pleased her but she made a face. "Meaning I'm too dull and dreary to have a story."

"Yet," he said. "Not all hope is lost, sweet. You are only four-and-ten after all. Even our fecund queen was five-and-ten before there were any delightfully scurrilous rumors about her." He plucked at a fold of her gown. "However, there is much promise to you. I do so like a woman who knows how to dress." And his eyes strayed innocently enough to Alicent, with a tell-tale smirk.

But when Ser Criston took the field, she had no attention to spare for her uncle. "He is our most gallant knight," she explained, a little breathless, a little flushed, after he had prevailed and left the field to wait his turn again. "And my sworn shield. I pray you repeat what you said, once more."

"Oh little niece," he said lightly, "there is so much I would like to tell you." He leaned towards her, his breath hot on her cheek. "Alone. Things that would delight you. And your shield. Him most of all."

"What things?" she said, drawing away.

"Things that every little girl should know," he said and tucked a curl of hair behind her ear, "if she wants to be a true woman." And he grinned at her as though he could read her thoughts.


	8. Alicent - The Light of the South

_Ser Otto's fifteen-year-old daughter, Alicent became his constant companion, fetching His Grace his meals, reading to him, helping him to bathe and dress himself. The Old King sometimes mistook her for one of his daughters, calling her by their names, near the end, he grew certain she was his daughter Saera, returned to him from beyond the narrow sea._

* * *

**103 AC, Maegor's Holdfast  
**

It was not enough to be fair of face. Honey-gold braids and a guileless smile could only take you so far in court - thrust against some dark wall, with your skirts around your waist. That was not what Alicent Hightower intended for herself.

Princess Aemma came to visit the king every morning, right after prayers. This daughter of House Arryn had much cause to pray, she had brought only a daughter to ten years of marriage - and countless sons who had either festered in the womb or died scarcely after they'd been named. Her ladies whispered that she had the womb sickness, that the carrying and bearing of another child would kill her.

_Not that her husband is like to mind._ Prince Viserys had the round, honest face of a country bumpkin but that was only a gift of the gods, as much as Alicent's beauty was. That could not hide the man he truly was. Not that it troubled her. _What he is, is kingly._

When the servants came to light the scented candles, in the purple dusk, Prince Viserys made his way to his grandfather's chambers. Sometimes he brought his Rhaenyra, his little delight as he called her. Of late though, he would come alone. When he came, Alicent was always ready for him - the sour smells of the old man's sickroom doused by rich perfumes. She would wear her hair loose about her shoulders, in the windowseat where she sat it would catch the last light of the sun and shine like burnished gold.

She had just laced herself in a tight gown and begun to pluck at the strings of her mandolin - music soothed the old man to sleep and made her task much the easier - when the door opened. But it was not the Prince of Dragonstone who had come - it was his brother.

Lord Fleabottom, she would have called him to his face if she dared. Instead she swept him a low curtsey and prayed that his visit would be short.

"How now, my honey aunt?" he asked. It was a mild jape at the king's expense - he had quite convinced himself that she was his youngest daughter. "You look lush enough to eat."

"Shall I sing, Your Highness?" she asked. If she sang, she could not speak. "It gentles His Grace."

"And we all know you only have my grandfather's best interests at heart." Instead of sitting by the bedside, as a dutiful grandson would, he crossed the room in one long stride. He loomed over her and in fumbling haste, she missed a key. The music jarred and he laughed unpleasantly. "Some would say an old man's sickroom is no place for a young girl."

"I take joy in serving His Grace. I hope my small efforts bring him some comfort and cheer in his eyebrows," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Ah little Alicent," he said, leaning against the frescoed wall. "How you've grown. They used to call you the honey maid in hopes of wooing you, but you kept your pot under lock and key. Now they call you the Light of the South. The Rosby girl had to fuck her way through half the court before they started to call her The Flower of the East. How _do_ you do it?"

_Coin, _she thought. _Singers are cheap._ None knew better than her the worth of a reputation."Virtue," she said demurely. "The rarest jewel in this court."

He laughed again. "You were not always so virtuous, sweetling."

She flushed in spite of herself. "I was a green maid, innocent of the ways of rogues," she said sharply. "You took advantage of me-"

He tsked. "It's not taking advantage if the woman's wet."

"-Your Highness, I am still maiden," she said coolly, "which is more than can be said of all your tawdry conquests in the backrooms and backalleys. I will not be shamed for my virtue."

"Waiting for a special someone, eh?" He studied her. "You look ripe for love, little Hightower. And you've a certain low cunning that I've come to admire. There are ways a woman can let herself be pleasured and still keep her maidenhead."

_I know, _she thought. Loquacious handmaids were always to be encouraged - they kept her informed of all the things that a highborn maiden should never know. Someday they might even come in use. But she feigned innocence and a blush for propriety. "Your Highness, I pray that you speak not so to me."

"And just when I'd begun to like you, you had to spoil it again," he said, with a sigh. "Prim and dull again. Keep your virtue, Lady Alicent. May it bring your lover much joy."

_A royal bride must be a maiden, _she thought, curling her fists in her lap in irritation. He left, after a check on the king, and she leaned her head against the glass and waited for his brother. Presently he came, a softer, faded impression of Prince Daemon. Blurring at the edges. Pink-faced and inclined to stoutness. _If he were more handsome I would have lost my heart and head because he can be so kind, _she thought, _I almost surrendered when Lord Fleabottom shoved me against the wall - and he was hard and cruel. __I might not have remembered to say no to his brother.  
_

"No change, eh?" he asked her, brushing his grandfather's forehead with gentle fingers. She shook her head. "You're a good girl, Alicent," he said. "Not many would be so devoted."

"It is my pleasure to serve," she said and added, with a self-conscious laugh, "my lady mother always said I was too soft." Of course she had said no such thing. If anything, people were more like to call her hard and chary with her kindnesses, when she was a child. She fiddled with her brooch, drawing his attention to the expanse of bared white bosom above it. "I wish for nothing more than to attend His Grace, but my father..."

"Yes?" he prompted, eyes latched on her throat and breasts.

She sighed. "He thinks it high time I were settled. Married. He would have me leave court to serve some husband I did not know or care for." She swallowed. "I do not think I could bear it."

"I will have a word with Ser Otto," the prince said. He crossed the room and patted her shoulder gently. "There now, sweetling, there's no need to cry."

Ever since she was six, she had had the power to summon up tears at will. In a house of brothers, it had served her well. Now, after a few theatrical sniffs she subsided, letting him stroke her hair and shoulders. It was very pleasant to be petted and she could tell that he was enjoying himself in the role a goodly knight comforting a fair young damsel. "Thank you, my prince," she murmured, taking his hand and kissing his fingers. "I hope I shall serve you and your court for a long while."

"And the princess," he reminded her, though he did not specify which princess - whether his wife or his daughter.

She smiled sweetly up at him. "Of course, Your Highness," she said, "her most of all."


End file.
